


The Bomb Drops

by HLine



Series: We Are Never Getting Back Together [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Crying Haytham, F/M, Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 14:20:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2391518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HLine/pseuds/HLine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ziio had broken up with him nearly five years ago. So what was so important that she needed a meeting with him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bomb Drops

**Author's Note:**

> Eyyyy, so, this is a modern!AU, because colonial society sucks. 
> 
> So, the Templar!Connor universe will continue to be my main focus, but this universe has been kicking around my head for a while now and refusing to go away. So I guess that this will be my blowing-off-steam fic series. Stay tuned, because hopefully I will be adding more!

Haytham drummed his fingers against the private room's rosewood tabletop, carefully not looking at his cellphone. Ziio had been the one to call him here, and she was not the sort of woman to stand a person up. 

Grimacing slightly, he placed one hand over the other to stop the drumming.

Even if it was him.

When he had received the email from her, he had nearly deleted it without reading it, convinced that it was some cruel prank. They had broken up nearly five years ago.  
Well, she had broken up with him five years ago.

(His heart still ached at the memory of fear on her face.)

That little fact was why he hadn't deleted the email, and had rather opened it and read its contents. And despite himself, he couldn't help but feel a flutter in his heart at her message, asking to meet him again. He had written out a reply and hit send before his brain had caught up. 

And so now here he was, waiting for his old lover at the tea shop where he had brought her for her first date. Nervously, he took a gulp from the cup and saucer in front of him and eyed at the teapot that he had ordered. Was ordering it too forward? It was the type that she had enjoyed when they were together, but it could be seen as desperate. Though he supposed it was rather pathetic anyways that he still remembered her preferences several years after they had split up. He tugged self-conciously on the deep red tie he was wearing. Right down to what colour tie she liked him to wear.

...Dear lord, he was acting like a fifteen year old boy on his first date.

Growling to himself, he picked up his phone to check if she had been held up somewhere when a warm, familiar voice reached his ears.

"Still can't put that thing down, can you?"

Haytham froze and looked up.

Ziio.

She was standing in the doorway with one of the servers behind her, as beautiful as the first day that he had seen her. Haytham's eyes roved over her hungrily.

She seemed virtually unchanged from the last time he had seen her. Her black hair was still pulled back in a thick braid with just a few chunks loose to frame her beautiful, fine-boned face and rich brown eyes. Her jewellery was the same as well, carved and arranged in the traditional ways and hanging from her ears, neck, and wrists. Jeans, a dark, bruised blue were offset by a pale, loose sweater with a wide neck that hinted at the soft curves that he knew were hidden underneath. A cane, carved with what he knew were the patterns of her people - 

A cane?

Haytham straightened slightly in his seat, his eyes now roaming Ziio's body not out of appreciation of her beauty but for signs of a cast or some other injury. As he watched, she moved the cane to a position in front of her and leaned her weight on it. Slowly, carefully, she began to hobble forward towards the table, and Haytham had to grip the arms of his chair to keep himself from getting up to offer help.

He well remembered the last time he had offered help. It had ended with him having to buy her an entire chocolate cake and flowers as an apology.

So he simply sat at the table, his phone forgotten in his hand, and watched as she slowly made her way to the chair opposite of him and sat down with a sigh, placing her purse down beside her chair.

"How have you been, Haytham?" she asked.

Swallowing, he put his phone down.

"Fine." What had happened? "I ordered some tea while waiting; would you like some?" Why did you contact me now?

"Yes please." 

She nudged the teacup that had been set in front of her seat so that the handle was facing her as he poured the steaming tea into it. It was a warm and unpretentious blend, Haytham had found. Much like the woman that was sitting across from him. Its slightly smoky scent floated up with the steam, filling the air as Haytham put the pot back down.  
Picking her cup up, Ziio blew on it and took a sip. Haytham thought that he saw a flicker of recognition cross her face at the taste, but she didn't say anything. She merely put the cup back down and folded her hands on the table in front of her.

"How are things at the office? I saw that you made Lee a partner two years ago. Is he the same as I remember him?"

"Ah, yes," he said, "Charles. He's as enthusiastic as ever. Been doing an excellent job as usual." He drummed his fingers against table briefly, then lifted his cup to his lips. Where would she have seen that? Did that mean that she was still following his career like when they were together?

He put his cup down and mimicked her posture.

"May I ask why you called me here today?"

Ziio lowered her eyes.

"As business-like as ever, I see," she murmured. Reaching beside her chair, she pulled up her purse and placed it in her lap, unzipping the main compartment. Haytham watched as she reached in and pulled out her wallet, flipping it open and pulling what looked like a hand sized piece of stiff paper out of it.

"We have a son," she said simply, holding it out towards him.

For several moments, the sentence did not make sense to Haytham. He could feel his lips moving, silently repeating the words she had said to herself and understand them. They had a son. 

They had a son.

_They had a son._

Together.

Numbly, he reached out and took the photo.

He was perfect, was the first thought to cross Haytham's mind. The perfect mix of him and Ziio, all in one small body. Standing in front of what looked to be a small bungalow, the boy had his nose and Ziio's eyes, her freckles and his jaw, his lips and her smile. Perfect.

In the photo, his son was beaming, his hair long and loose, just brushing his shoulders and falling in front of one eye. He was short and chubby and yet gangly at the same time in the way that only children could be, his blue, star-patterned t-shirt riding up slightly to expose a slice of belly to the camera. Clutched under one arm was a large stuffed wolf, nearly as big as the boy himself and drooping so that its stuffed tail was dragging on the sidewalk, a medium-sized fingerpainting held fast in his other hand. He traced the smiling figure with one shaking finger.

His son.

Their son.

Distantly, Haytham realized that Ziio was still talking.

"He's very smart," she said, the sheer love and pride in her voice overflowing, "he already reads at a fourth-grade level. All of his teachers love him. Sweet too. He helps our landlord in his vegetable garden, plays with the neighbour's baby whenever he can."

She was smiling softly, in that tender way that he had only seen before when they woke up next to each other. When they had still loved each other.

"Why are you telling me this?" Haytham almost pleaded with her. Why was she telling him this now? Why did she not tell him that she was pregnant when she left him? He would have supported them.

The loving smile faded from her face. She began to trace circles in a droplet of tea that had been left on the table.

"A little over a year ago, there was a fire in our house. I ended up pinned underneath a beam, in front of him. He tried to stay and lift it off of me, but..." she shrugged. "We were lucky that the firefighters got to us so quickly. The beam smashed my pelvis, and that along with the burns had me in the hospital for some time. He had to stay with my mother until I could get out. Apparently, he didn't like that. Was a complete hellion." Her eyes slid over to the side, looking at a memory rather than him. 

"She's not as young as she used to be," she said quietly. "She can't keep up with a five-year-old anymore. Especially not when he's throwing a tantrum. My brothers are off at war on the opposite side of the world or busy with their own families." She looked back down at her hands, which had stopped tracing circles. "I was lucky this time, Haytham," she said, "very lucky. But I realized that I need a plan to take care of Ratonhnhake:ton in case something like this happens again."

Pressing her lips together, she closed her eyes for a second, clearly steeling herself. 

"That's why I want to put you down as next of kin," she said, opening her eyes again.

Haytham's lips parted slightly. He felt dizzy, like he could fall over and have the world crumble around him at any time.

He had a son. His (lover?) had been in a terrible accident and nearly died. Now she wanted him to take care of their child if something else happened to her. 

The smiling face of his son looked up at him from the photograph. Could he do that? Could he take in a child that he did not know, knowing that he was his last link to Ziio if she died?

Across the table from him, Ziio's knuckles were white.

"If you don't want that," she said, her voice tight, "just come out and say it." 

Looking up, Haytham felt even more fragile as he blinking rapidly. Her face was tight with tension, her lips bloodless, and a fine tremor was running through her. He realized, then, just how much the meeting must have taken out of her. Her health was most likely not completely better either.

Haytham's throat tightened as she closed her eyes again, her eyelashes looking suspiciously damp. She reached across the table towards him, and as she did so, her sleeve rode up a little.

Haytham nearly hissed at the sight of the shiny, taut skin stretched tightly over her wrists. It was a deep, painful-looking pink, almost on the verge of looking like raw meat.  
"Just give back the photo, then," she said, her voice soft and resigned. "I won't bother you again."

He only realized that he was holding her hand when she opened her eyes again, looking shocked.

"I'll do it," he said fervently, covering the photo with his other hand. "Put my name down. Just," he hesitated slightly; did he dare expose himself? "Please, allow me to keep this photo." He bit the inside of his cheek before the torrent of words flowed out of him again. 

"Please."

* * *

Haytham knew that he was swilling his scotch like Hickey.

Somehow, though, he couldn't quite bring himself to care.

Pouring himself another two fingers of the stuff, he finally paused in gulping it down to press the chilled glass against his forehead. 

He had a son. With Ziio. Who had nearly died without him having any idea of either of those events.

Perhaps it was being in the privacy of his condo, perhaps it was the alcohol (it was probably the alcohol, if Haytham was being honest; thank you very much, Dad), but Haytham felt his eyes moisten at that. He had, after Ziio had left him, consoled himself with the thought that at least she would be happy and safe, free to date someone who would be able to devote more time to her. Who wouldn't be too embarrassed of their family to introduce them. Who would be able to explain himself so that she wouldn't think that she was some sort of bit on the side to him.

But no, he had managed to bugger even that up. Saddling her with a child, Haytham had no illusions that that had made her life any easier. Children were expensive, after all; if she hadn't had him, surely she would not have been forced to stay in a place with shoddy wiring or whatever had caused the fire.

God, those scars on her arms! His heart clenched just thinking about them.

Did his son have scars like that too? Looking at the photo that had somehow migrated from his wallet to the counter in front of him, his insides shrivelled at the thought of those coltish limbs covered in stiff, shiny flesh. Tilting his his head back, he drained his glass to banish the thought from his mind. No, he thought as the alcohol burned its way down his throat; Ziio would have mentioned that if it had happened, surely.

The image still lingered.

Wiping his mouth carelessly on the back of his hand, Haytham stood up and walked over to the balcony doors. Mysteriously, his glass had refilled.

The cool air was a balm to his flushed cheeks. He took a swig of his drink and stared out at the city lights, the twinkling dots and lines that made up the buildings and roads blurring slightly in his unfocused vision. Leaning against the balcony's railing, his glass dangling carelessly from his fingers, he shut his eyes and leaned into the wind.

What would it have been like, he wondered, if to be there with the two of them? If Ziio hadn't let, if he hadn't scared her off? Would they have chosen Connor's name together? Would he have seen his son's first stumbling steps, heard his first words, been there to soothe his worries on his first day of school?

He felt as empty and echoing as his home.

The feeling of wetness trickling down his face burned icily through his muddled thoughts and might-have-beens. Swiping irritatedly at his face, he cursed. He had always been a maudlin drunk, just like his father. That was why he rarely drank half a bottle of scotch in a single sitting.

Turning, he stumbled back inside his (empty) condo, leaving the winds of the city behind him. Cold silence met him, and for a moment, his mind wandered to how a child would have filled the room with noise and joy.

Carefully, Haytham put his glass back down on the marble counter-top, but not without a dubious look at the dregs. He really had drunk too much if those were the thoughts constantly assailing him. Still, he couldn't resist picking the picture of his son back up to stare at it once more. 

Neither could he blame his subconcious, though. The idea of a family was a seductive one. Since his mother's death and his falling out with his father, the only other person he had really been close with was Ziio. She had been the only woman he had ever truly seen himself having a family, even marrying. Oh, there were his coworkers, and they were a fine lot, all of them, (even Hickey despite how Charles complained) but they weren't really close enough to speak to about such things. Maybe Charles was, but he had never liked Ziio in the first place and would probably just make disparaging remarks until Haytham lost his temper.

Flopping into his armchair, he picked up his phone and began to scroll through his contacts. It was a depressingly short list. His partners at work, listed in alphabetical order. Shay Cormac, that rather fascinating young police captain at the city's main precinct he had worked with on a few cases. Adewale, who sometimes used him for advice when one of the children at his youth centre got in legal trouble. And that was about it.

Except for one last name. Haytham paused, his thumb hovering over icon. Jenny's sulking face stared up at him, looking utterly unimpressed with the mess he had made of himself.

Haytham caught a drop of liquid at the corner of his mouth and frowned thoughtfully. While they hadn't been close as children, he and his older half-sister had mellowed towards each other over the years from a fierce sibling rivalry to mutual respect as they both grew up. He wasn't sure when it had started; perhaps once they were both adults and no longer forced to rattle around in the same house. Or maybe it was after she had been rescued from that overseas slavery ring. Whenever it had started, their taunts and insults had softened, becoming affectionate rather than cruel. She had helped him after Ziio had left during the strain of the trial, and he in turn fielded her phonecalls in the small hours of the morning when she couldn't sleep. When Haytham had stopped speaking to their father, she had kept his new phone number from being given to the older man.

Yes. He could call Jenny. Tapping the picture, he held it to his ear to listen to it ring as he settled back deeper into his chair, his chin resting on his chest. His son's picture felt like it was burning a hole where it lay on his stomach.

After three rings, she picked up. 

"Hello?" came her cool, suspicious tones. For some reason, this caused a new wave of tears to re-dampen Haytham's cheeks.

"Jenny?" he asked. Distantly, he was surprised by the quaver in his voice. When had that gotten there?

Jenny must have heard it too; he could hear her abruptly shifting her body from a lying to a sitting position and turning on a light with a metallic click.

"Haytham?" she said. "You sound like crap."

Haytham barked out a sound that in some parallel universe could have sounded like a laugh. His face was really wet now. 

"My apologies," he murmured, his tongue thick in his mouth. He clumsily wiped at his face. "I'm afraid that I have been drinking."

A small, relieved sigh crackled over the connection. "Okay," she said gently. Well, gently for her, at least. "What's got you cracking open the whiskey?"

Haytham let out a pathetic, wet sniff.

"It was actually scotch," he corrected. "And I have a son."

There was a rather awkward pause. Muzzily, Haytham hoped that it wasn't because he had corrected her.

"Do you want a cigar?" Jenny asked, her tone delicate.

"No, no," Haytham chuckled ruefully, plucking at his silk shirt. "It's rather too late for that particular tradition. Five years too late, actually."

"Jaysus, five years?" Haytham could imagine her raising one perfectly plucked eyebrow in his mind's eye. "And the mother's only telling you about it now? Haytham," her tone went careful, "have you thought that the mother might -"

Haytham nearly crumpled the photo in his hand before she managed to finish the sentence. "He looks exactly like me, Jenny!" he snapped, proud at how he only slurred his words a little. "He even has the Kenway nose!"

"My point still stands, Haytham, why didn't the mother tell you about him earlier? You're a rich lawyer, and a damn good-looking meal-ticket to a hell of a lot of desperate women out there!"

He ground his knuckles into his eye.

"Ziio wouldn't -" he began, then sighed, the energy running out of him. "She told me about him because she wanted to put me down as his guardian if anything happened to her." Pulling his hand away from his face, he let it fall clumsily into his lap. The scars that he had seen on her arm rose to the forefront of his mind, and embarrassingly, he felt a lump in his throat begin to grow. 

"It was Ziio, Jenny," he said, barely able to get the words out, "she had been in a fire - our son -" he half-laughed, half-sobbed, "he's perfect Jenny, the perfect mixture of me and her -"

"Oh, Jaysus, Haytham," she said, the tense irritation fleeing her voice. His face was wet again. "Come on, what's upsetting you so much about finding out that you're a father, now?"

He opened and closed his mouth several times, the words unable to work themselves free from his throat. He knew that he must be a pathetic sight. Half a bottle of scotch gone, a photograph in his lap and him sobbing into his cellphone like a college boy after his sweetheart had broken up with him.

God, why was this bothering him so much? Yes, he had inherited a certain mawkishness while inebriated from his father but usually that just meant that he stuck to morose topics of conversation while drunk. He didn't burst into tears like a child!

Besides, he and Ziio had broken up even before she had known that she was pregnant. And, well, with the reasons for why they had broken up, she was certainly within her rights to believe that he was uninterested in any children that they might have had together. The look on her face that day; she had been expecting him to reject her, to reject them both. 

Haytham knew this but his heart was still screaming at him. 

Gasping for air, he managed to get himself back under control. "He's mine, Jenny," he said wetly, staring at the wall, "I should have been there, seen his first steps, heard his first word - it's just not fair!" Internally, he winced at the childish words, but another staticky sigh pulled his attention back to his listener. 

"Haytham," Jenny said, her voice gentler than he had ever heard before, "did she ever say that you couldn't meet him at all?"

He sniffed. "She left me," he muttered, tugging at his suddenly too-tight tie.

"I know, but think," she said. A note of fond exasperation entered her voice. "She didn't tell you about him at first, yes, but you told me yourself that she asked you to be his other guardian. Does that sound like she doesn't want you to see him?"

Haytham rubbed at his eyes. His muddled head struggled like a rusty engine trying to start to keep up with what she was saying.

"I don't follow," he admitted after a minute of strenous thinking.

"It means," Jenny said, "that she is comfortable with the idea of you being around him. You don't have to stay a stranger to your son. Just send her an email or a call, ask to spend time with him! She'll probably be delighted that you're actually interested in being a father!"

"Oh," Haytham said. That alcohol had really hit him hard. Then the full impact of his sister's words hit him.

"Oh!" he said, his eyes flying open. 

"Yes!" she said. "She probably won't refuse so long as you ask nicely. Just let her set the terms and dates."

"I - Yes!" Haytham said firmly and then tried to stand up. The floor tilted, but he steadied himself and persevered towards the bag that held his laptop. 

"I will do that," he babbled, fumbling with the latch, "I will send her an email and know my son."

"Alright," Jenny said, "but Haytham, maybe wait until you've sobe-"

But Haytham wasn't listening anymore. Dropping the phone to the floor, he finally managed to wrench open the case and pull out the sleek black rectangle that was his laptop. Getting back up, he somehow miraculously avoided getting tangled in his cord and flopped back into his chair at the counter, booting the machine up.

He had to write this. He had to know his son.

 

* * *

Haytham awoke to his face sticking to his countertop, and his laptop open and displaying the default screensaver of tropical fish lazily swimming around in a coral reef.

Grunting, he sat up and winced at how the sun streaming through his balcony door stabbed at his eyes. He clumsily rubbed at his face in an attempt to banish the shooting pains in his eyeballs and grimaced at the feeling of stubble rasping against his palm. 

What had he done last night?

Looking around slowly so as to spare his aching head, his eyes almost immediately fell upon the half empty bottle of scotch sitting open on the counter only a few feet away. A used glass, its dregs dried and sticking to its bottom, sat beside it, looking deceptively innocent.

Oh god.

He pressed his knuckles against his eyes and groaned. He hoped that he wouldn't have to do any apologies for doing something embarassing. One round of letters and phonecalls in university after breaking the Deans window was enough for him.

Alright. He remembered coming home after work at least. He had been sober then. Some law firms, he knew, had nightly cocktails, but he had never enjoyed the practice. So he had gotten home sober, but then had made a beeline for the scotch. Looking again at the label, he remembered that his father had had Adewale give it to him for Christmas. He had very nearly thrown it out, just because of that, but Ade had convinced him to keep it because otherwise his father would be calling the dark-skinned man at two in the morning again in tears, and he was 'not willing to put up with that shit anymore, dammit'.

But why, after nearly two years of it sitting and collecting dust, had he opened it? He couldn't remember anything unusual at work. He had got in, worked on preparing for the arson case, separated Charles and Thomas during their daily spat, gone to lunch -

Ziio.

How could he forget! He had gotten so surprised (sad) that he had a drink to steady his nerves, and it had turned into three or four or however many it took to drain half the bottle -

Haytham cringed. He had drunk-dialled Jenny. Oh god, he would never hear the end of this. On the bright side, though, at least it hadn't been Charles. The last time he had done that had been in university, and he had woken up to the younger man in an apron making him pancakes. The pancakes had been good, but his sheer joy had been, well, a little disturbing.

He had blubbered the whole story to her, crying pathetically, and she had given him advice -

For the second time that morning, memories hit Haytham like a bolt of lightning. 

The email. Frantically tapping the touchpad, Haytham banished the fish to find that his inbox was still open, the little tab that signified 'message sent' in a cheerful butter yellow floating hauntingly at the top of his screen. 

Haytham became aware that he breathing harshly, gripping the edge of the counter hard enough to whiten the tips of his fingers. 

What had he said? What had he said?! He tapped frantically at his outbox, scanning the subject lines for any hint of Ziio's name. He was so frantic that he skipped over it three times despite the fact that it was at the very top of the list three times before he calmed down enough to click on it.

The window opened with a cheery 'ding'. Ignoring his throbbing head, Haytham peered closely at it. 

At the very least, there were no egregious misspellings. Other than that, though, the content was terribly embarrassing. He was practically begging her to allow him to see their son, something that made the pride in his soul shrivel like a salted slug. He hadn't begged since was a child on vacation, desperate for an ice cream on the boardwalk.

Haytham groaned and buried his head in his hands. He would need to apologize for this.

There was another cheery ding. He almost didn't dare look up. Peeking through his fingers, he bit back a whimper.

It was Ziio. Replying to his email. He swallowed convulsively. Did he dare open it? God he hoped it wasn't a rejection.

Opening it, he was surprised to see that it was only a few lines long. Tiny, really, compared to his rambling manuscript.

_Haytham._

_Yes._

_This weekend good for you?_


End file.
